A giant blob of seaweed twice the width of the continental US is headed for the shores of Florida and other coastlines throughout the Gulf of Mexico. 9News
The blob is threatening to dump smelly and possibly harmful piles across beaches, dampening tourism season.
Here's what you should know about why these masses happen and how they affect both humans and ocean life.Tourists enjoy the beach despite the sargassum algae buildup in Cancun, Mexico, in May 2021.Sargassum is a catchall term that can be used to refer to more than 300 species of brown algae, although Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans are the two species most commonly found in the Atlantic.
Those elements can be dumped into the ocean from rivers, which gain concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen from human activities such as agriculture and fossil fuel production, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. "This is why we're trying to work on these early warning systems — high resolution in coastal areas, which takes higher-resolution satellite imagery to do a better job showing what's actually coming into a beach within the next 24 or 48 hours," he added.
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